AllTheseThings

Be afraid!

I’m not much of a linguistics expert, but I do have an unexplainable fascination with the meaning of words. I especially like long words, pieced together from other languages. It often broadens the meaning of a word, far beyond what we have reduced it down to, in our modern culture. Words become richer when we know where they came from.

So it is with my new discovery of the day: agoraphobia. I was under the impression, from popular use, that it meant a fear of open spaces. My mind conjured up pictures of vast green fields and snowy mountains, Julie Andrews twirling and singing, and someone right next to her, finding it difficult to breathe.

Not so, as I found out. Agoraphobia also refers to a fear of very crowded places, like malls and theatres and airports, as it should, because “agora” is originally a Greek word meaning “marketplace”. So “agoraphobia” literally means “fear of the marketplace”!! Hmmm……a slightly different image than my Julie Andrews version, but one which makes sense because shopping does bring me out in a cold sweat. 

It might also amuse you to know that the marketplace in ancient Greece was also the public square and place for political assembly. So we can also say that agoraphobia means "fear of the political assembly". You might agree there have been some pretty scary political assemblies recently.

So, if the current political season is making it hard for you to breathe, you can always blame your agoraphobia…… 

Philomena

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Prep Work

Last week we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is a favorite spot for my seven year old and me.  After studying Egypt, we spent almost 2 hours in the Egyptian collection; she knew more than the junior college kids falling asleep in front of the Temple of Dandur.  Last month we rented the audio guide and she was engrossed in the Greek and Roman Collection before and after lunch.  But this most recent visit we went because my aunt was visiting. We had not studied any new period closely, so we meandered around.  L. enjoyed the audio tour again, but was more aimless. (The biblical imagery was understandable to her.  My 4 year old and I reasoned out who we thought was the bad thief and who was the good thief.  She had good reasons, but the artists were not as interested in the thieves as we were.)

Anyway.  What struck me following our most recent tour was how much L. benefited from studying a period before seeing the great works from that period.  It was the same reaction I had today at Muscoot Farms; the animals fascinated the children: the farm tools they had no concept of were ignored.  Being a homeschooling mom, this is helping me focus what we study and where we go for field trips.

Still Learning,

Beth

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Passport To Purity

I just experienced the most wonderful weekend with my 13-year-old daughter. I had purchased Family Life's Passport to Purity package a couple of years ago but have been putting off scheduling a weekend to go through it with my daughter.

Well, a month ago my husband cornered me and made me pick a weekend.

After 16 years overseas, we are moving to the U.S. this summer, and he knew it was definitely time for me to have some more serious conversation with our daughter about sexual purity.

We have had several talks about sex over the years, but in the midst of even those my insides have always been fraught with a strong message to get the heck out of there and talk about something non-threatening, like the weather! So as I opened the Passport to Purity package a week ago and began familiarizing myself with it, I got nauseous realizing that I was going to sit side-by-side with my daughter and listen to and discuss these CDs.

I also cried quite a bit as I realized how much I wish I'd had a weekend like this with my mom as I entered my teenage years. That was 30 years ago, and there weren't many good parenting books even on the market, much less an extensive tool to help my parents talk with us about what to expect in our teenage years and helping us set standards. I completely understand why I didn't have that time with my mom, but I sure could have used it. I had no idea what I was doing as a teenager and took all my cues from other kids who also had no idea what they were doing. So I knew I HAD to walk through every stage of this material together with my daughter, no matter how awkward it might be for me.

Now that our weekend is over and we are back home, all I can say is that it may have been the best two days in all of my parenting experience! I loved it; my daughter loved it; the walls are completely down; I became comfortable talking about all aspects of sex with her; and I feel like my daughter is fairly equipped to face the complex issues of her teens, especially as she experiences public school and life in America for the first time.

If you have a son or daughter in the 11-13 year age range, please take a look at www.passporttopurity.com to learn more.  If we're not actively engaged in doing this kind of thing with each of our kids in today's culture, I think we are seriously setting them up for failure.

Theresa Olive

Norms and Nobility

If you want a shot in the arm about the true aims of education, read David Hicks' treatise entitled, 'Norms and Nobility'.  He reminds us that we need to teach children what ought to be done, not what can be done.  In teaching children to ask and to seek answers to the great questions, "What is courage? What is virtue?" their imaginations are engaged in learning.  When L. and I read Odysseus, I will not ask her first for themes, or 'what happened', but about character and how it is shown.  I am a novice at this, but excited.

Beth

Make it last

On Sunday I was teaching my 1st grade Sunday school class about the 12 days of Christmas and Epiphany, when it's traditional to celebrate the coming of the Magi to visit baby Jesus. The kids seemed very excited to find out that Christmas wasn't in fact over and instead lasted for another 7 days. Their enthusiasm waned when they realised that those 7 days didn't include more gifts! The trick seems to be making the enjoyment of the first gift last for as long as possible. 

As usual, the lesson preparation taught me almost as much as I taught the kids. I never really appreciated that Christmas lasts more than 1 day, and it was always a huge anticlimax on the 26th. To minimise the disappointment I used to clear the Christmas cards off the shelf and put away the decorations by New Years Day. I've noticed other people doing the same thing this year. The sidewalk outside my building already has a few Christmas trees lying on it, waiting for the trash truck. It seems that we're all ready to move on.

I wonder why this is? Maybe we started too early with our celebrations, not praying and fasting our way through Advent as we should've, so we're now all party-ed out. Maybe we're just impatient to get back into our routine or afraid if we rest and relax too long some insidious sloth is going to overtake us making us unable to function ever again. Of course, some of us are just expected back at work on the 2nd.

If you have indeed prayed and fasted your way through Advent, then I congratulate you. You have certainly earned the right to party through Epiphany! I certainly did not earn that right, but I'm going to try and recognise the extended celebration by at least keeping my Christmas cards up a little longer this (next) year.

Happy Epiphany!

Philomena

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Losing the plot

On Saturday I attended a small group leaders conference organized by a couple of local churches. I was looking forward to receiving some encouragement and advice since my small group has been struggling this time around. The timing was perfect.

The very first speaker (Henry Cloud) gave me my wake-up call, and the second speaker (Bill Donahue) reinforced it. They reminded me that as small group leaders, we are not just setting times and dates and arranging for someone to bring snacks. We’re not even (just) facilitating discussion about a passage of scripture. That would make us meeting organisers (at this point I start sinking down in my seat). What we’re doing is sharing our spiritual journey and encouraging others to do the same. And what I had forgotten, or maybe even never realised, is that as leaders, our own journey is maybe the most valuable thing we bring to the group. Before you call the Heresy Police and have me arrested, what I mean by “spiritual journey” is the process we are all going through every day as Christians, to continually put aside our idols and put our trust back in God. We are (ideally) fighting this fight of faith individually and then sharing the experience with others to encourage them to continue fighting.

Fighting is tiring. It takes awareness and critical thought and effort. It’s much easier to organise meetings, buy snacks, and send out emails for my small group rather than walk with God and share that experience with them. In my small group a few nights ago we talked about how easy it is to be busy with Christian things and how much harder to rest and wait with hope for God. Let’s face it, being busy with Christian things just looks better. Guilty as charged.

I knew my small group was struggling. I had wondering if we needed a change of day, an earlier starting time or maybe a different kind of cookie. But, thanks to the conference I’ve realised it needs a leader who is not just an organiser, not just a host, not even just a discussion facilitator. The members of my group need a leader who is committed to working on her relationship with God so she can encourage them to do the same. Which, come to think of it, is the whole point of a small group!

Exhausted, but back on track,

Philomena

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Sweepin' the Clouds Away

I was a big "Sesame Street" watcher when I was young.  I didn't realize it was so loaded with sociological messages!  The early seasons are out on DVD, apparently with a warning that they are not really suitable for...young children!!  Liberalism has folded on itself.  Puppets with pipes, methane producing cows featured, kids having milk and cookies with adults...  Liberal 1969 wasn't quite right, I guess.  So liberal 2007 requires a warning label.

The whole matter is discussed in this article in the NYT.  It is interesting, silly, tragic, and funny.  The last paragraph brings it all together:

People on “Sesame Street” had limited possibilities and fixed identities, and (the best part) you weren’t expected to change much. The harshness of existence was a given, and no one was proposing that numbers and letters would lead you “out” of your inner city to Elysian suburbs. Instead, “Sesame Street” suggested that learning might merely make our days more bearable, more interesting, funnier. It encouraged us, above all, to be nice to our neighbors and to cultivate the safer pleasures that take the edge off — taking baths, eating cookies, reading. Don’t tell the kids.

Be nice to your neighbors, eat cookies, read,

Thomas More

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Augustine and Education

I've been slowly working my way through Augustine's Confessions.  I came across an interesting passage the other day wherein Augustine mused on the futility of intelligence if not applied with a knowledge of God.   I've high-lighted a few of my favorite parts--it's all good--from Book IV, Chapter XV:

28. And what did it profit me that, when I was scarcely twenty years old, a book of Aristotle's entitled The Ten Categories fell into my hands? On the very title of this I hung as on something great and divine, since my rhetoric master at Carthage and others who had reputations for learning were always referring to it with such swelling pride. I read it by myself and understood it. And what did it mean that when I discussed it with others they said that even with the assistance of tutors--who not only explained it orally, but drew many diagrams in the sand--they scarcely understood it and could tell me no more about it than I had acquired in the reading of it by myself alone? For the book appeared to me to speak plainly enough about substances, such as a man; and of their qualities, such as the shape of a man, his kind, his stature, how many feet high, and his family relationship, his status, when born, whether he is sitting or standing, is shod or armed, or is doing something or having something done to him--and all the innumerable things that are classified under these nine categories (of which I have given some examples) or under the chief category of substance.

29. What did all this profit me, since it actually hindered me when I imagined that whatever existed was comprehended within those ten categories? I tried to interpret them, O my God, so that even thy wonderful and unchangeable unity could be understood as subjected to thy own magnitude or beauty, as if they existed in thee as their Subject--as they do in corporeal bodies--whereas thou art thyself thy own magnitude and beauty. A body is not great or fair because it is a body, because, even if it were less great or less beautiful, it would still be a body. But my conception of thee was falsity, not truth. It was a figment of my own misery, not the stable ground of thy blessedness. For thou hadst commanded, and it was carried out in me, that the earth should bring forth briars and thorns for me, and that with heavy labor I should gain my bread.

30. And what did it profit me that I could read and understand for myself all the books I could get in the so-called "liberal arts," when I was actually a worthless slave of wicked lust? I took delight in them, not knowing the real source of what it was in them that was true and certain. For I had my back toward the light, and my face toward the things on which the light falls, so that my face, which looked toward the illuminated things, was not itself illuminated. Whatever was written in any of the fields of rhetoric or logic, geometry, music, or arithmetic, I could understand without any great difficulty and without the instruction of another man. All this thou knowest, O Lord my God, because both quickness in understanding and acuteness in insight are thy gifts. Yet for such gifts I made no thank offering to thee. Therefore, my abilities served not my profit but rather my loss, since I went about trying to bring so large a part of my substance into my own power. And I did not store up my strength for thee, but went away from thee into the far country to prostitute my gifts in disordered appetite.  And what did these abilities profit me, if I did not put them to good use? I did not realize that those arts were understood with great difficulty, even by the studious and the intelligent, until I tried to explain them to others and discovered that even the most proficient in them followed my explanations all too slowly.

Put your gifts to good use,

Thomas More

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Homeschooling, Too

We are beginnning to homeschool our almost seven year old tomorrow!  On the seminary campus where we live there are four other homeschooling families, and I have the curriculum set.  But then I read about a potentially better grammar book.  Ought I switch?  Think, fret, ponder.  Enter wonderful husband.  No, I will stick to the plan for the year and re-evaluate.  Such fun!

Our group has trips to nature centers and museums planned every two weeks.  I am 'meeting' other families in NY/CT on a yahoo group list.  Beginning is always the easy part for me; persevering is not.  So, remind me to bring out 'The Little Blue Engine That Could' in six weeks.

Beth

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The Awkward Question

The scene: sipping a margarita with my boss at happy hour last night. As these evenings wear on, the conversation normally drifts to the subject of work colleagues and their various short-comings. My boss complains about everyones limitations and jokes that if we could generate hybrids of people with their mutually exclusive strengths then we’d come up with the perfect employee.

Now it doesn’t take a genius to realise that if I’m sitting there listening to the shortcomings of the guy who sits next to me at work, then when the guy who sits next to me at work is sitting having drinks with the boss, he’s probably hearing all about mine. I guess that’s just life, but it also seems like a waste of potentially useful information. What good is it if all of my shortcomings stay hidden, known to everyone except me? So, draining the last of the margarita for courage, I asked the awkward question. “What are my weaknesses?”.

I’ve never seen the color drain out of anyone’s face quite that fast. What, actually have to tell me, TO MY FACE?? What kind of crazy system is that? I had to go to the restroom to give him time to calm down and ponder his response. When I returned, he took the diplomatic approach and listed all my strengths first. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just get to the point. I can take it. In various situations, he said, (naming them all), I have lacked leadership skills. Hmmm. Well, that’s OK, I thought, because I didn’t think I was supposed to be a leader anyway-pah! So, you can’t fail at something you weren’t even trying to do. The ultimate get-out clause!

But in the cold light of day, and with a little more coffee and a little less tequila, I’m wondering about the whole issue of leadership. We seem to categorise some people as “leaders”, even “born leaders” based largely on their personality but also on communication skills and confidence. I’m pretty sure I’m not in that category, but I’ve been doing my job for long enough now that it’s probably reasonable to expect me to be a leader in some capacity-at least guiding the more junior members of the office as they navigate their way through tasks I can do with my eyes shut.  As Christians I think we can be confined by the same definitions. There are “born leaders” in the church: pastors and elders and youth leaders etc who make communicating the gospel look easy. But even if we aren’t in that category, we are bearers of The Good News to a lost world. That to me seems like a serious call to leadership. The Great Commission is a call to leadership. We know this is different (even opposite?) to the leadership we might be called to at work because our Lord led the way in demonstrating leadership by serving others, rather than sitting back and giving instructions. But, it’s leadership all the same. As God’s chosen people, maybe we’re all born leaders?

And with that question, I’m leaving for vacation. Feel free to comment without me, and I’ll enjoy catching up when I get back!

 
Philomena

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